quor were to cure me of a fever, I never touch a drop.' I now found
what she would be at, and immediately poured her out a glass, which she
received with a curtesy, and drinking towards my good health, 'Sir,'
resumed she, 'it is not so much for the value of the liquor I am angry,
but one cannot help it, when the house is going out of the windows. If
the customers or guests are to be dunned, all the burthen lies upon my
back, he'd as lief eat that glass as budge after them himself.' There
now above stairs, we have a young woman who has come to take up
her lodgings here, and I don't believe she has got any money by her
over-civility. I am certain she is very slow of payment, and I wish she
were put in mind of it.'--'What signifies minding her,' cried the host,
'if she be slow, she is sure.'--'I don't know that,' replied the wife;
'but I know that I am sure she has been here a fortnight, and we have
not yet seen the cross of her money.'--'I suppose, my dear,' cried he,
'we shall have it all in a, lump.'--'In a lump!' cried the other, 'I
hope we may get it any way; and that I am resolved we will this very
night, or out she tramps, bag and baggage.'--'Consider, my dear,' cried
the husband, 'she is a gentlewoman, and deserves more respect.'--'As for
the matter of that,' returned the hostess, 'gentle or simple, out she
shall pack with a sassarara. Gentry may be good things where they
take; but for my part I never saw much good of them at the sign of the
Harrow.'--Thus saying, she ran up a narrow flight of stairs, that
went from the kitchen to a room over-head, and I soon perceived by the
loudness of her voice, and the bitterness of her reproaches, that no
money was to be had from her lodger. I could hear her remonstrances
very distinctly: 'Out I say, pack out this moment, tramp thou infamous
strumpet, or I'll give thee a mark thou won't be the better for this
three months. What! you trumpery, to come and take up an honest house,
without cross or coin to bless yourself with; come along I say.'--'O
dear madam,' cried the stranger, 'pity me, pity a poor abandoned
creature for one night, and death will soon do the rest.' I instantly
knew the voice of my poor ruined child Olivia. I flew to her rescue,
while the woman was dragging her along by the hair, and I caught the
dear forlorn wretch in my arms.--'Welcome, any way welcome, my dearest
lost one, my treasure, to your poor old father's bosom. Tho' the vicious
forsake thee, there is